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Our Man Bashir (episode)
A transporter accident replaces the characters in Bashir's secret agent holodeck program with the physical forms of the station's senior staff. Summary A man in his 40s with a patch over one eye is violently thrown through a glass screen and lands unconscious on the floor. On the other side of the room from where the screen used to be, Doctor Bashir stands casually, dressed in a tuxedo, and walks back toward his female companion, Caprice. She smiles as she hands him a bottle of champagne, but she has a troubled look on her face. Bashir looks at the bottle and sees the reflection of the other man, who is attempting to sneak up on him. With nothing else to use for a weapon, Bashir turns around quickly and uncorks the bottle, using the cork as a projectile to render the other man unconscious. He turns to Caprice and the two embrace, but they are interrupted by clapping from elsewhere in the room. It is Garak, who has broken into the holosuite because he is curious to know what Bashir is doing. He notes that Bashir has been visiting the holosuite repeatedly ever since Bashir received his new holo-program and yet the doctor has not told anyone what the program is. Despite Bashir's protests, Garak uses his usual charm and tactfulness to convince the doctor to allow him to stay and observe. However, he notes that Bashir's companion has just left. The doctor is obviously not amused, but Garak assures him they will have a wonderful time together. As he and Bashir enter the doctor's fictional apartment in Hong Kong, Garak takes in the decor of 1964 Earth before they are joined by Bashir's valet, Mona Luvsitt. She reveals that behind one of Bashir's walls is an assortment of firearms; between this and the lavish surroundings, Garak surmises that Bashir is playing a wealthy individual and is surprised to hear he is a spy. On hearing the Bashir's government provided the surroundings, Garak claims he joined the wrong intelligence service. Meanwhile, Sisko, Kira, Worf, Dax, and Miles O'Brien return from a conference only to discover their runabout has been sabotaged. The runabout is about to explode, so Eddington beams them out. Unfortunately, the explosion comes during the transport, and the crew members' patterns are stuck in the transporter buffer. Given the immense amount of space required to store neural information and the fact that the buffer will soon lose coherence and the signatures with it, Eddington orders the computer to wipe all memory necessary in order to save the patterns; consequently, the crew members are somewhere on the station, but he and Odo have no idea where they are. Memorable Quotes "A lot of kick for a '45 Dom." --Bashir, after he shoots Falcon with the champagne bottle "If I were you, I'd grab the nearest bottle of champagne and shoot me!" --Garak "Kiss the girl, get the key. They never taught me that in the Obsidian Order." -- Elim Garak Background Information Bond and Beyond * This episode is a homage to spy movies, particularly the James Bond series. The title is a homage to the 1966 film Our Man Flint. * The plot of Bashir's holonovel is a classic Bond-style plot, particularly reminiscent of several films in which Roger Moore starred. In the holonovel, Hippocrates Noah plans to use lasers concentrated around Earth to cause a chain reaction that will flood the planet and allow him to start a new Human race on Mount Everest. Similarly, Moonraker features a billionaire who plans to poison Earth and start over in outer space, while The Spy Who Loved Me revolves around a plan to cause nuclear war and begin a new civilization under the sea. * In typical Bond fashion, many character names (particularly those of the females) have secondary meanings; for example, Mona Luvsitt is obviously sexual innuendo for "Mona loves it." This tradition dates back to at least Goldfinger, which featured the notorious "Pussy Galore." * The opening champagne gun scene is a homage to a scenes in Goldfinger just before the opening credits. In the movie, Bond enters the quarters of a beautiful woman who has just gotten out of the bath. Spotting an assassin in the iris of the woman, Bond throws the man into the tub and electrocutes him by knocking a heat lamp into it. Much like Bashir's witticism ("A lot of kick for a '45 Dom"), Bond says, "Shocking. Positively shocking." * When Bashir describes his fall from the dirigible -- "I had a parachute... and there was a submarine waiting for me" -- this is more than likely a reference to the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, in which Bond has a similar fall and, after a ski chase, finds a submarine waiting for him. * Bashir's game of Baccarat, in which he wins the fee for a visit with Hippocrates Noah by assuming he can win Duchamps' money, is yet another Bond homage, for Bond frequently took similar risks and was fond of card games such as Baccarat. * At one point, Bashir warns Garak that the program is supposed to end with either Honey Bare or Anastasia Komananov dying and the other ending up with him. Yet another classic element of James Bond is that, although Bond usually has sex with several women over the course of a film, he always ends up with one of them in bed for the final scene (with the others either going back to their respective lives or dying). This has been the case ever since Bond's brief marriage in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. * And, of course, Noah explains his plan in great detail shortly before he plans to kill Bashir. After Bashir floods the Earth intentionally ("You've destroyed ze vorld!" Kira exclaims), Noah observes that somehow he didn't expect to win. * Noah tries to kill Bashir by tying Bashir and Garak to one of his lasers, which is set to flood the room with molten lava. This may have been a reference to Moonraker, for in that movie, the villain confines Bond and his "Bond babe" to an area below his rocket, intending to incinerate them when it launches. In any case, it is typical Bond style for the villain to pass up the chance for an "easy kill" and allow Bond a method of escape. Trivia * This episode received Emmy nominations for Outstanding Hairstyling and Outstanding Music Composition (Jay Chattaway). * The fifth season episode "A Simple Investigation" was a sequel of sorts in that it also involved Bashir's holo-novel. In that episode, the crew plays various roles by choice and most everyone takes part. * Komananov's confusion over Kira's name ("Who is this... Nerys Kira?") is one of the few instances in which the issue of Bajoran name order is addressed. Early on in the series, many fans were just as oblivious as Komananov to the fact that Bajoran surnames come first, and thus although Kira's name is "Kira Nerys," "Kira" is to "Nerys" just as "Sisko" is to "Benjamin." * Alexander Siddig and Nana Visitor had just become a couple when this episode was filmed. * Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko) does not appear in this episode. Links and References Main Cast *Avery Brooks as Benjamin Sisko/Hippocrates Noah *Rene Auberjonois as Odo *Michael Dorn as Worf/Duchamps *Terry Farrell as Jadzia Dax/Honey Bare *Colm Meaney as Miles O'Brien/Falcon *Armin Shimerman as Quark *Alexander Siddig as Julian Bashir *Nana Visitor as Kira Nerys/Anastasia Komananov Guest Stars * Max Grodénchik as Rom * Kenneth Marshall as Michael Eddington * Andrew Robinson as Elim Garak * Marci Brickhouse as Mona Luvsitt * Melissa Young as Caprice References Baccarat; biology; brandy; Cardassians; champagne; chemistry; Christmas; cigar; Club Ingenue; colonel; command control systems; computer; computer memory; copper; copper-ytterbium composite; core memory interface; ''Defiant'', USS; deflectors; dirigible; Dom Perignon; Earth Cold War; francs; geology; Great Britain; helicopter; holo-imaging array; holosuite; holosuite memory core; Hong Kong; Iceland; impulse engine; jetsetter; Julian Bashir, Secret Agent; KGB; Kowloon; laser; magnetic interlock; martini; Merriweather, Patrick; money; Mount Everest; neural energy; New York City; Obsidian Order; ''Orinoco'', USS; parachute; Paris; pattern buffer; physics; plasma; plasma coil; primary energizing coils; ruby (gemstone); Russias; sapphire; secret agent; seismology; South America; spatula; submarine; Tibetan plateau; topaz; tormaline; transporter; transporter beam; True Way; Vladivostok; warp core; warp core breach; ytterbium. Category:DS9 episodes de:Unser Mann Bashir nl:Our Man Bashir